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Harlem in Disorder: A Spatial History of How Racial Violence Changed in 1935

South Harlem Rotisserie window broken

South Harlem Rotisserie at 365 Lenox Avenue had its window broken during the disorder. A central section of the window was smashed, leaving intact the street number and the text "South Harlem" and portions of the letters making up "Rotisserie." A white man in the store looks through the window, directly at the camera, in footage in the Pathe newsreel from the day after the disorder. A sign showing prices is in the window, and another man inside the store is visible through the intact door, suggesting that the store may not have been looted. No other sources mention the damage to the store, and no one arrested during the disorder was charged with breaking the window.

Irving Stetkin, who owned a grocery store three buildings north of the restaurant complained that the crowds in the area were too large for police on the scene to control, according to a report in the New York World-Telegram. His store, at 371 Lenox Avenue, featured in the same Pathe Newsreel as the South Harlem Rotisserie. That grocery store, and another owned by Stetkin at 363 Lenox Avenue, and Michael D'Agostino's business at 361 Lenox Avenue were all looted, and suffered more extensive damage and losses than the restaurant, as did stores at 372 and 374 Lenox Avenue across the street. The laundry next to the South Harlem Rotisserie at 367 Lenox Avenue, like the restaurant, only had windows broken.

The white-owned restaurant was recorded at this address in the MCCH business survey taken between June and December 1935. The Tax Department photograph of the building shows a chicken restaurant at the address between 1939 and 1941, with signage in the window similar in shape to that in the newsreel but too far away to be legible.

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